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Steak Burger / Weekly Special – Eat Cafe, Glasgow

Sometimes we like to get outside of the city centre for a burger and recently we’ve been hearing a lot of great things about the Eat Cafe in Shawlands from our readers. We’ve received photos, e-mails, tweets and Facebook messages telling us that it’s the best burger in the south side of Glasgow and we had to get along to try it for ourselves.

Located on the busy Kilmarnock Road, the Eat Cafe is an unassuming spot that serves up breakfast, lunch and dinner to hungry diners – not to mention a wide selection of cake and coffee too! Infact, the first thing that we noticed upon walking in the door was the large plate of pistachio and vanilla meringues sitting on the counter. The cafe is nicely decorated and offers a warm, welcoming atmosphere along with very friendly service and features a diverse menu which will no doubt feature something to suit everyone’s tastes.

The steak burger

After a quick browse of the menu, we settled on the steak burger and the weekly special. The steak burger was topped with gruyere cheese, gherkins, tomato salsa and chipotle mayo and served on a toasted sesame bun. There was the option to add bacon for an extra £1.50 and despite being a little fed up with seeing bacon on just about every burger I’ve eaten recently, I decided to complete the experience and add it anyway. The weekly special consisted of a pork and chorizo patty topped with red pepper and garlic mayo, also on a toasted sesame bun. Both burgers came with a side of coleslaw and a portion of skinny fries.

Inside the steak burger

We waited just over 30 minutes for our burgers; however, there was a large wine tasting evening being held in the restaurant and the guests were ordering large amounts of food, so the time was perfectly understandable.

First impressions were that the presentation of the burger was near flawless. It was a good size and the cheese and chipotle mayo oozed out of the side of the brushed, toasted bun.

The pork and chorizo burger

Taste-wise, my first thoughts were that the steak burger really delivered. The gruyere cheese and chipotle mayo worked extremely well together to create a very distinct smokey flavour and the bacon was some of the best that I’ve had on a burger in a long time. Lately, I’ve grown quite tired of overly-salty, stringy bacon on burgers, but the bacon used here was well cooked, lean and full of flavour and it tasted even better smothered in gruyere cheese! All of these flavours melded together extremely well; however, what I couldn’t taste much of was the patty itself. Upon trying some of it on it’s own, there didn’t appear to be any real distinct flavour present and while it was a good size, very well cooked and juicy, it did lack seasoning. The burger worked so well purely because of the amount of flavours that were present from the toppings. These worked so well that they disguised the fact that the patty itself lacked flavour. I felt that the same applied to the weekly special. Beautifully presented and topped with a generous helping of garlic mayo, the patty itself was unusual and gave off a deep, smokey flavour which was tasty, but didn’t really taste like chorizo. Infact, I couldn’t really taste any chorizo in the burger at all. Yes, it gave off a very smokey flavour; however, chorizo has an unmistakable taste and it was one that I didn’t feel was present enough in this burger. If they had simply advertised it as a smoked pork patty, I would have been hard-pushed to find anything wrong with it, but the fact that it was listed as a pork and chorizo burger and then lacking in chorizo was a little disappointing. The toasted buns that were used were of a high quality and cooked perfectly. They had a lovely glaze coating that also finished off the presentation nicely and held everything together extremely well, which was impressive considering just how much sauce and cheese poured out with each bite.

As a whole, the burger was great and the flavours of the toppings combine to deliver a sucker punch of flavour straight to your mouth. Deconstructed, however, there’s room for improvement when it comes to the flavour of the patty.

The fries that were served with the burgers were absolutely delicious. Advertised as skinny fries, they were almost shoestring like – extremely thin, light and crispy, I could have happily eaten another portion. Delicious!

The Eat Cafe say on their Facebook page that their customers tell them that the burgers they serve are the best in Glasgow. While I wouldn’t quite agree, I do think that it’s the best burger I’ve tried in the south side of Glasgow so far. Admittedly I haven’t had many in the south side and I also still need to visit the Go Slow Cafe – another burger that our readers often rave about. The steak burger served at Eat Cafe was an average patty that was made great by the carefully selected toppings, flavour combinations, excellent bun, delicious fries and first class presentation. At almost £11 (more if you add bacon), it may be a little pricey, but if the patty had just been seasoned a little better or had held some kind of distinct flavour, I would have given it my highest recommendation.

SUMMARY+ Beautifully toasted, tasty bun+ Fantastic presentation+ Toppings on the steak burger created some fantastic flavour combinations+ Delicious fries– Patty was juicy and well cooked, but was under-seasoned.

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